78 
CUTTINGS. 
[chap. IV. 
in its place by wires hung over a branch, or 
supported by four little sticks, tied to the 
pot with string. The earth should be very 
moist before it is put into the pot, and if the 
season be dry, it may be re-moistened from 
time to time. When the layer is supposed to 
have rooted, a cut or rather notch should be 
made in the branch below the pot, and after¬ 
wards it may be cut off, and the young plant 
transferred with its ball of earth entire to an¬ 
other pot or the open ground. A simpler way 
of performing this operation is using a piece 
of lead instead of a flower-pot. A modification 
of this plan was adopted by Baron Humboldt 
in South America. He provided himself 
with strips of pitched cloth, with which he 
bound moist earth round the branches of 
several of the rare and curious trees he met 
with, after first taking off a ring of bark; and 
when he returned to the same place some 
time after, he found rooted plants which he 
brought to Europe. 
Cuttings differ from layers in being re¬ 
moved without roots from the parent tree; 
and as the current of the ascending sap is 
stopped at once by this separation, they ge- 
